This Saturday is the Michigan Brewer’s Guild’s Winter Beer Festival in Grand Rapids. Dawn & I are doing the same thing we did last year – a bus trip from Kalamazoo to Grand Rapids. I’m pretty excited! As usual, it’s my job to work out pretzel necklaces. Last year, I did ribbon necklaces with bows and snowflakes hot glued on them. I felt like I needed to kick it up a notch, though. In summer, bows and ribbons and all that are fine, but for winter, it’s trickier. You’re all bundled up, so when you have a thick coat & scarf on, chestal area real estate is at a premium. Then, like a flash of genius it came to me. PRETZEL SCARVES. Kill 2 birds with 1 stone (drink 2 beers with 1 glass?)! You get warmth AND pretzel accessibility without all the added bulk. I dug through my fabric stash and found some leftover fleece that was just dying to become a pretzel containment device. So here’s what I came up with:

Another amazing feature of the pretzel scarf is it’s eco-friendliness. These babies can be machine washed and re-strung with pretzels again and again and again. In case you can’t tell, I’m feeling pretty awesome about this project. If you’ll be at the fest, look out for me, Dawn, and our girl Jessica rocking the amazing PRETZEL SCARVES.

Just for giggles, I thought it’d be fun to share my journal page from last year’s fest. I hope you love it. Have a stellar weekend, my lovelies. Click to see larger.

Here’s a quick recap of what’s been going down lately:

• Mike has become a prolific baker. And by that I mean he buys refrigerated cookie dough and bakes it into cookies that are sometimes shaped like butts. He makes a dozen or so, leaves me 2, and then takes the rest over to Sam & Steph’s when they watch Walking Dead on Sunday nights. This is the perfect arrangement for me – I get 2 fresh baked cookies, and don’t have to look at the rest of them because he never brings any back home. This one time he put the dough globs a bit too close together and the cookies came out looking like butts. Behold: butt cookies.
  
• I wore a sweater dress last week. That’s a big deal. I think it looked ok, too. I was in sort of a panic at first, but then I just got over it. So that’s pretty exciting. I bought the dress when I was in Texas in January 2012, so I’ve been hanging onto this thing for a while. Anyway, I feel pretty victorious.
• Mike & I went to the eye doctor last week and we both got new glasses. I picked out Coach frames! They’re pretty sweet. I’m hoping to pick them up sometime this week.
• I picked up my mug on Friday. It turned out decent for my first try, but I think I could do better now that I’ve gotten my feet wet in this whole ceramics deal. Here’s a terrible pic of it in awful lighting:
  
• I bought a pair of slippers. I used to wear shoes around the house, because otherwise my feet hurt. Since I always had real shoes on, I was never able to wear any cute slippers. Since my foot surgery I’ve been wearing just socks, but my feet are always cold. So I bought some furry leapord print booties that have little tiny leopard print pom poms on them. They are super cute and now my feet are warm!
• Sunday was the TENTH anniversary of this blog. I feel like there should have been a bit more fanfare or something, but I never really got anything together, so there it is. Happy Blogiversary to me!
• As of yesterday, Mike is back to working 2nd shift, which SUCKS. We can’t go to the gym together anymore, and I have to eat my dinner alone during the week. He’s working 12-9, which is better than 3-11 by far, so at least there’s that – he gets home before I have to go to bed. It’s only temporary, but we don’t know exactly how long temporary is just yet.
• I had the day off yesterday for President’s Day, so I did a bit of shopping and went to the pool with my mom. It was a beautiful day – cold but sunny, so it was fun to be out & about.

So that’s pretty much it around here. I hope all of your dreams come true this week.

I had a pretty eventful weekend! Friday night I went out with my mom & my sister to a ceramics night at a local studio. I’ve never done any ceramics before, so I had no idea what to expect or what we would actually be doing. It turned out to be really fun! We had a very good time chatting and laughing while we painted our projects. My mom made a really cool travel mug that has a lid, and my sister made a rectagular tray that she is planning to use as a fruit bowl. I picked a giant coffee mug that has a handle – surprise surprise. I had NO IDEA what I was going to do with it, so I foraged around in a bin full of stencils until I found this really cool branch type. Once I had that I decided to do neutrally brownish autumnal colors. I ended up painting my mug in tan, with the handle a darker brown. Uh oh…The cute branchy stencil I picked was too large to fit on my mug! I had to wing it, so I ended up freehanding the whole thing. I hope it doesn;t look awful once it’s fired! I also painted a cute little leaf on the inside bottom, and painted my name on the outside bottom. Here’s the pre-fired look. The colors will look quite a bit different after firing.

I can’t wait to pick it up this Friday and see how it turned out! This was really fun, and I can’t wait to do it again sometime.

On Saturday, Mike & I hooked up with a few friends and went over to WMU for the Marmalade Dog show. It’s a gaming convention that focuses mainly on table games and strategy games such as Warhammer, Magic, etc. There’s really not a whole lot in it for me usually, except there are some cool vendors. Last time I went I bought a cute fleece hat with ears on top. This time, I was not disappointed at all. I bought an AMAZING cameo that can be worn as a brooch or as a pendant, and it looks like THIS:

It’s pretty much the greatest thing, like, ever. I love it. The rest of Marmalade Dog was pretty boring for me, but it’s fairly small so we didn’t stay for very long.

So that’s it for now. Hove a great rest of your week!! XOXO.

A look at my journal from one year ago today! I was taking my painting class and working on the painting of Buffy. There is definitely something weird going on with the proportions here – the arm is way too long or something. Also, my hair was long then, and you can see the pink extensions! I was just thinking the other day how much I miss them. Anyway, I hope you like it.

I started a new book for my daily diary a few days ago. This is my 6th book, which is pretty exciting. It’s hard to believe that I’ve been doing this every single day for almost 2 years, but I have. The picture above is actually the opening page from my 3rd book (this was around May 2012), but I really like it so I wanted to share it.

Up until now, I’ve only used books that have unlined white paper. I’ve used both hardbound and spiral, though. Book 6 is different in several ways – it’s a Claire Fontaine Scrapbook, so it alternates between white sheets of lined paper, and thicker, black, textured paper. The black paper is lovely – thick and with a nice tooth. There’s another twist as well – it measures 11.75 x 8.25, which is the biggest page I’ve used, and it’s a sideways layout which is also new to me. I’ve done a couple of entries on the lined pages – it’s different, but challenging in a good way. The black paper is even more of a challenge – my selection of materials to use on it is severely limited, so I have to really think about what I want to convey and how I can make it look the way I want it to. So far, so good. Here’s a little sketch of a fire from my first black paper page. I like the way it turned out.

That’s it for now. I hope your day is the best ever!

This week was Mike’s birthday, so we got together with some friends last weekend to celebrate. Mike rarely drinks, and when he does, he is a champion sipper – he can nurse a drink for a good long time. The birthday party was a 90′s theme, and Mike decided to party like it was 1999! He bought a mason jar full of some sort of cherry flavored moonshine. It even had a ton of cherries floating around at the bottom. It smelled like rubbing alcohol, but apparently, Mike reeeallly liked it. He spent the entire evening drinking moonshine straight out of the jar, and occasionally switching off to mixed vodka drinks in a red solo cup that he had named Bocephus. There were some Goldschlager shots in there somewhere too (this was a 90s party after all). Mike had a great time at the party! Predictably, he paid the price for that fun later in the night, but I don’t think he has any regrets. Here’s my interpretation of the evening, from my journal:

In other news, I decided that the C25K plan isn’t right for me at the moment. I just don’t think my foot is ready for it – it was hurting it pretty badly. I wasn’t in love with the running anyway, but I think I could have stuck it out longer and given it more of a chance if my foot had been less painful. I definitely want to give this a try again. Maybe in the spring when I could actually run outside. I just need more time. It’s only been 10 weeks since the bunion surgery after all.

In addition to the attempts at running, Mike & I are trying really hard to eat better and exercise regularly. He is still doing the C25K, and actually enjoying it, so GO MIKEY! I’m back to doing my regular workouts – elliptical, arc trainer, racquetball, swimming, and more. I like variety – it keeps me interested. So far, I’ve lost 6.5 pounds, so things are going well. Since I quit smoking last March, I put on 25 pounds! I’m trying to shed that weight plus quite a bit more. It’s so much easier with Mikey on board, I can’t even tell you.

Happy Birthday to Mikey, Johnny V, my little neice Renea, and my sister Kassie this week! XOXO

In the last few days, I’ve gotten some really nice pictures of Buffy. This is notable because A) I’m a crazy cat lady and B) because her fur is so dark, it’s really difficult to get good photos of her. If the lighting isn’t just right, she just looks like a big black puddle. Nemo is a creamy tan, so he’s easy.

Anyway, I’m pretty stoked about these, so I thought I’d share.

Caught her licking her face! Ha! So cute.

She looks all deep in thought, but she’s probably just wondering if it’s almost time for her next meal.

Almost asleep on my lap.

Mike & I started the Couch to 5K program last week, and it’s….going. If you’re not familiar with the plan, it’s 3 days per week for 30 minutes each, and you are doing a combination of running and walking that turns into progressively more running and less walking each week. The first day, I got through it, but I had technical issues – I couldn’t get the C25K app to work and play my podcast at the same time, so I had to do the whole 30 minutes in silence. I got through it, but let me tell ya, 60 seconds of running feels like an hour when you do it in silence. Plus, with nothing for my mind to focus on, all I could think about was how much my foot hurt. It did hurt, but it wasn’t that bad – better than I expected even.

Day 2 was kind of a bust. Again with technical issues – I couldn’t get the app to work at all, so I lost my place and ended up just doing a brisk walk for 15 minutes then hitting the elliptical for another 15. On Day 3 (which was really my Day 2) everything finally came together and I got through the 30 minutes with a podcast AND the app working. It seemed so much faster with the podcast! I did sort of miss a day, but I had planned to do Week 1 for 2 weeks anyway, so I’m not worried about it. I may do every week twice. I’m not in a rush to complete the program, and I think it’ll be easier on my foot to take my time. I definitely don’t love running yet, but I don’t really hate it either. I’ll keep going with this for now.

This past Saturday was the kick-off for Kalamazoo Beer Week, so I wrangled Clovis & Lee into doing the Pub Crawl with me. We were whisked around town to several local bars on the Gallagher’s double decker bus. We had a blast! Here’s some amazing photos to prove it:

Lee & I at our first stop after Gallagher’s – The Union. Poor lighting & a bit blurry, but you can see our big smiles!

Also at the Union, Clovis enjoyed a Bacon Apple Bourbon martini. Sure looks pretty!

The Pub Crawl bus was sponsored by Sam Adams, so Clovis is showing some love.

That’s it for me! I hope your weekend was amazing, and that this week is even better. Toodles!

The last couple of weeks have been sort of eventful, so here’s a catch up of the haps. After Friday 12/21, I was off work until after the first of the year, as was Mike. We started our vacation off with a bang – The Peaches were in town, so we got to spend some time with them, which is always a pleasure. Peach Pit is still a complete jerk (yet somehow lovable) and Peach Fuzz is still adorable & sweet. I sure wish those kids still lived around here so I could see them more often. Anyway, the old gang hit the town and we had a ball. Also, I wore a dress! That’s pretty big news! I only took one picture the entire night, but it’s a DOOZY. Peach Pit is so pasty white that I think the flash scared him.

We spent Christmas Eve at our house with my family, and it was nice. We ate, opened presents, ate dessert, and then chit chatted for quite a while. It was a very nice afternoon. Christmas Day was spent in Grand Rapids with Mike’s family, and that was really nice, too. It was a madhouse with a zillion people, but a really great madhouse. The kids got walkie talkies so that was fun!

The day after Christmas I woke up and my throat was sore – I felt like I swallowed broken glass. I shook it off fairly quickly though, and Mike & I ran a few errands. My throat never felt great, but I managed. Well, things went rapidly downhill from there! I got worse and worse and ended up spending the rest of the week and the weekend either in bed or on the couch. I was MISERABLE! It was completely horrible to spend my vacation sick. I was able to catch up on all my DVR’d shows, though, which is the only plus. I am still a couple of Vampire Diaries behind, and I haven’t watched any of this season’s Gossip Girl yet, but what the hay, it was cancelled anyway so I’ve got all the time in the world now, right? I also got sucked into a Gilmore Girls re-watch, and man oh man, do I love the hell out of that show. I think the entire series is up there with Veronica Mars season 1 for best show ever ever ever of all time. I managed to get some work done on my sock yarn binky as well. It’s coming along nicely.  

So, I rang in the new year with Mike at home – we watched the ball drop, and I drank about 3 sips of a beer before deciding I couldn’t finish it and dumping it. So yeah, I was THAT SICK. Mike did drag me out of the house on New Year’s Day – it was our last vacation day so we went out for lunch and made a quick trip to Target for some supplies, but we headed home right afterward because I was still feeling pretty pooptastic. I DID score this amazing furry hat/scarf combo that has ears AND a hot pink lining. I am definitely wearing it to the Winter Beer Festival next month. I know this is an awful pic, but I was wicked sick and the lighting was bad, and you will just have to deal:

I am not even 2 months past my foot surgery to correct the bunion, but Mike & I have decided we want to be runners, so we are going to start the Couch to 5K program next week. I am not 100% sold on the idea that I will ever be a “runner” but I think it’ll be fun to try. I honestly have no idea how my foot will do, but hey, I’m going to give this a whirl and see where it takes me. Everone I know who runs has said that they never thought they would be a runner or enjoy running and then they ended up being in love with it. Maybe that’s me! I have a sneaking suspicion that it IS NOT, but we shall see. And again, there is th